1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer storage systems, and more particularly to a system and method for balancing the most frequently used file system clusters across a plurality of physical disks or other storage devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems generally store data on storage devices such as disk drives by dividing the data into blocks referred to as clusters. A cluster is the minimum allocation unit utilized by a file system. Cluster sizes vary on different systems; typical cluster sizes range from 512 bytes to 4 KB, although larger or smaller cluster sizes can also be used.
Many computer systems utilize storage systems that include multiple physical disks. For example, large organizations often utilize volume manager products that allow administrators to organize physical disk space into independent logical volumes that span multiple physical disks. Data located in these volumes is accessed through a file system, database, or other applications.
Within any given volume, there is typically a subset of clusters that are accessed more frequently than other clusters. The manner in which the most frequently used clusters are distributed across the physical disks can affect the efficiency of data access. For example, if many frequently used clusters are located on a single disk, access speed for these clusters may be slowed since the disk cannot physically access all of these clusters simultaneously. Efficiency of data access is a very important factor affecting the performance of an organization's servers, databases, and other software applications.